The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company v. Kane case in 1921 revolved around the issue of copyright infringement. The plaintiff, Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, alleged that the defendant, Mr. Kane and his associated companies had infringed upon their exclusive rights to create derivative works based on a series of books they held copyrights for - "Broncho Billy" stories by Charles E.Van Loan. The defendants argued that they were not infringing as their films were original creations and did not copy any material from the copyrighted books directly. However, it was found that while there may have been no direct copying or plagiarism involved in creating these films, they still bore striking similarities to characters and plot elements present within Van Loan's work which constituted indirect copying or appropriation of intellectual property. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Essanay stating that even though there might be no literal similarity between the copyrighted book and defendants' film scenarios yet if substantial parts are lifted without alteration then it constitutes an infringement under law.

In the dissenting opinion for Essanay Film Manufacturing Company v. Kane, Justice Holmes argued that the plaintiff's claim of copyright infringement should not be dismissed simply because they had failed to include a specific notice on each copy of their film. He stated that such a requirement was not explicitly outlined in the Copyright Act and thus it was unreasonable to expect companies to adhere to it. Furthermore, he pointed out that even if this were an implicit requirement, there would still be no grounds for dismissing the case as long as some form of notice was included with each copy distributed - which in this case there was. Therefore, according to Justice Holmes' interpretation of copyright law at that time, Essanay Film Manufacturing Company should have been allowed to proceed with their lawsuit against Kane.